


Settled

by turnitoffmckinley



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Post-Mission, mentions of cheating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 09:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13655895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnitoffmckinley/pseuds/turnitoffmckinley
Summary: Connor isn’t exactly known for doing the right thing, and he absolutely isn’t known for giving second chances. Above all, he does not takerisks.





	Settled

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt fill I did on a side blog.

He remembers it all; even when it hurts so much.

It wasn’t all shits and giggles and it wasn’t all romantic strolls under the moonlight and hidden kisses in the shadows like in every stupid romantic comedy film.

He **settled**. He did, he _really_ did, and they tried a lot of different things. Kisses. Hugs. Some really awkward handjobs in the communal showers of the mission hut. It didn’t really work all that much, but to be loved a little was better than to not be loved at all and so Connor tries not to let it bother him.

Nope, not one bit, not even when in the middle of a dance call, his phone rings and everyone knows it’s his phone because who else would set Beyoncé’s _Formation_  as their ringtone? Just _Connor James McKinley_ of course.

“Sorry, so sorry,” Connor says, feeling the eyes of the auditors and the other dancers and everyone staring at him, “This is _really_ important.”   


Well, he just got screwed again.

Once upon a time, when Connor McKinley was younger, he was in love, and it was dangerous and stupid and they just thought that they could get away with it. Young love is something Connor McKinley has since learned in the hardened years that followed is absolutely impossible to maintain. There’s no real substance to it, no depth, no grit.

Right? That’s what it was. Just hormones, fooling around. At age 19, Connor had kissed his first boy in the red mud of Uganda with their bodies pressed together and straining under their dirt-stained fabric and their chapped lips doing all the talking. They’d panicked, they’d avoided each other for days.

And then Kevin Price just had to excuse themselves into Connor’s little square office and talk about _feelings_. Trivial, typical. And Connor had bought into it. Of course he had, and by age 20 they were doing a lot more **touching** and even _more_   **feeling**  because that’s how it always is.

There was no mention of a girl back home. Why would Kevin have one? Obviously gay, obviously awkward and antisocial and lonely and somehow with perfect teeth, who would’ve known the guy was such a sociopath?  


Phone calls, letters. Plans to just leave their families behind, just to forget the past ever _fucking happened._  So great. What a surefire plan.

“Connor…” he plead, his voice cracking, “Connor, I told them everything.”  


Rain hitting his windowpane, Connor had hugged his pink pillow to his chest in the dorm. His roommate gave him the stink-eye (evidently, he was crying harder than the thunderstorm was howling back at them; he didn’t pay that any heed) and pulled the covers over his head. 

And then, Kevin tells him something.

Something that just… breaks him, and Connor is left sobbing and wiping his eyes on his throw blankets and rocking himself back and forth. And Kevin, well, he just had the audacity to try and cover it up. Like he always covers things up when things don’t go his way.

“You _what_?”  


“Let’s run away together. Please.”  


A lump settled in his throat. 

“ _No_.”  


It was probably the first time Kevin had heard Connor say the two-letter word like **that**. A long time ago, a time almost forgotten, they’d dipped their toes in a pool. The water was cool, too cool for Uganda, but no one else in their little Kampala hotel was around, and it felt like quite an escape from the heat, and from the _Church._  Official business, to the Mission President.

They’d laughed like the dumb teenagers they were, shoving each other and dunking themselves like teenage boys should be doing, as if to prove there was one “hetero” bone in their body and turned into kisses and gasping and heaving and moaning, and for a moment they forgot, and Kevin whispered _it_.

Now they can’t take that back.

“I love you.” Kevin cried on the phone.  


“Tell your girlfriend I said hi.”  


And that was that. Five years later, Connor wipes the sweat from his brow and reads the caller ID with a pit of dread in his stomach. He’d heard some things around, over dinner with Arnold and Naba. This could cost him a job– this could cost him his dreams of Broadway. 

“I’ll make it brief. You’ve got this, Connor.”  


He presses the phone to his ear, hating how the name _Kevin Price_  both hurts him and makes him ache with curiosity and hope. He quivers, grinning as he answers with his signature, “Hello! This is Connor speaking!”  


“Connor.”   
  
Kevin sounds aged, tired… different. There’s a worn-ness to his tone, a sort of silver hair that makes Connor’s smile drop and his shaking even worse.  


“Haven’t heard from you in what, two years?”  


Two years, because the last time they went to Arnold and Naba’s wedding it ended with something both of them weren’t proud of: cheating on their significant others, and well, both of them closeted _that_  problem and Kevin went home to his **wife**  and Connor went home to his boyfriend and it _never_  happened and why is he even thinking about it now, why does he even care what _happened_  because Kevin and him aren’t a _thing,_ they’re not, they’re–

“I’m getting a divorce.”  


It’s straight to the point. Bold. Connor’s grip tightens around the phone.

“Congrats.” he says, steely.

“I want to see you. Can I see you? I came all the way here. Can I–”  


“What are you, _high_? You’ve got a lot of nerve, not speaking to me for this long and then expecting me to just run back into your arms.”  


He looks down at his ring. A simple silver band. He didn’t have much, his _fiancé_  didn’t have much either, but it was enough.

Connor **settled.**  And at what price?

“I’m getting married to Timothy,” Connor sneers, “You’re a bit too late.”  
  
“You don’t even _like_ him.” Kevin retorts, “Please. Can we just talk?”

“About what? Tim is an awfully jealous man, you know, he wouldn’t like it if he heard I was talking to boys who like boys.”

“We’re not boys anymore. We’re not _Elders_  anymore. Connor, come on, I know you.”

“Do you?”

Great, now he’s crying, and he wipes his eyes on his arm pathetically and he wants to find a corner to hide in and never come back out again, because all he feels is shame and anger, and well, _something else_  that he can’t quite place, but god is it miserable!

Silence. The silence hurts more than anything else, and it makes Connor’s anger bubble and boil over into rage.

“You don’t have anything to say, _Elder_ , because you don’t know me anymore. You’re only calling me because you want to get in my pants, because she isn’t giving you any, because you’re not willing to face the fact that you are _gay_ , and you know what? You may not know me, but I know _you_ –”  


“That’s not fair–”  


“Don’t interrupt me!” Connor snaps.  


The other people around him in the hall look up from their stretches and their pliès and their vocal warm ups. The world is staring. The world and everyone’s _mother_ … is staring. Embarrassed, he looks at the floor and softens his voice.

“I know you’re used to getting the things that you want, Kevin, but unfortunately, that doesn’t include me.”  
  
“What do _you_  want?”  


_You._ he thinks.

 _“_ To be Timothy’s husband,” he says, “Goodbye, Kevin.”  


“Don’t hang up. You’re a bad liar, Connor. We can start over. I still do, you know.”  


“Do _what?”_  


_“_ Love you.”  


That stings, and  Connor finds himself crying all over again, and angry, and _god damn_  himself for letting Kevin get under his skin like this how he always does.

“I have someone waiting for me, someone who’s dying to appreciate me more than you ever will.”  


“I _love_ you, how many times do I have to say it?”  


Before he can even take it back, he slips out, “Don’t call this number again.”

**Beep.**

Silence.

Then, Beyoncé sings to him again. He stares dumbly at _Kevin Price is calling!_  This might be his last chance, ever, to make things right.

Connor isn’t exactly known for doing the right thing, and he absolutely isn’t known for giving second chances. Above all, he does not take _risks._

He clicks his phone into silent mode. After a pause, he gathers things, and he leaves the building.

Connor **settles** , and the price is everything, even when it hurts so much. Back to his boring life, his boring fiancé, his boring apartment.

“Good going, McKinley,” he mutters to himself.   


“Good going.”  



End file.
